Feb012010

Review: PixelJunk Shooter

I’ve been following the progress of a company known as Q Games for a while. Right now they’re most well known for producing the “PixelJunk” series of games for the Playstation 3. Even though my Playstation 3 mostly serves as a giant paperweight these days, I’ve downloaded a few of their demos and been generally impressed. Q Games was founded by Dylan Cuthbert, who worked at Argonaut Software (developer of Star Fox for SNES) back in the day. It’s cool to see someone aside from Shigeru Miyamoto stay relevant to the games industry for so long.

Anyway, like I said, Q Games is known for their PixelJunk brand, a collection of four (so far) inexpensive, downloadable titles for the PS3. Aside from the common PixelJunk name (great use of branding, by the way), these games have nothing in common. The first was a slot car racing game, the second was tower defense, and the third was a stylized platformer. The fourth, and most recent (not to mention my own most recent purchase) was PixelJunk Shooter.

As you can guess from the title, Shooter is, at its core, a shooting game. The player is tasked with rescuing miners and scientists who have been working to uncover resources under the surface of an unexplored planet. As you fly deeper and deeper underground, you encounter new and different obstacles. At first, these obstacles consist mostly of lava pits, which can be quenched by shooting through weak cave walls and finding water sources (getting too close to lava raises the heat level of your ship, which can be cooled by a dunk in some water). Further in, however, you come across ice, explosive gas, and a strange magnetic liquid that is attracted to your ship. The fluid dynamics are modeled in a very realistic fashion, and it’s fun to watch the different materials interact. In addition, you can find various modifications for your ship: to allow it to shoot lava or water, or an “inverter” which allows your ship to enter lava, but water causes it to overheat. These different gameplay ideas inject a bit of puzzling into what would otherwise be a straightforward action game, and elevate it from being merely “good” to “great.”

PixelJunk Shooter’s length is just right. The game consists of three episodes that contain 5-6 stages. Each stage contains about four “sub-stages,” smaller areas where you need to rescue all the survivors in order to proceed to the next. A stage will probably take you about 15 minutes to complete the first time. So, extrapolating, you’ll get about 4 hours of unique gameplay for your $10. Each stage introduces new game concepts, and you barely get used to one you just learned before it’s taken away and you have something entirely new to learn. The upshot is that the game feels very content-dense, yet each game concept is under-used so that you don’t get tired of it. As far as bang for your buck goes, I can wholeheartedly recommend PixelJunk Shooter; the price is just about the same as going to a movie (my local theater charges $9), but it’s twice as long and has much better content than any movie I’ve seen recently.

After playing PixelJunk Shooter (as well as a few other PixelJunk demos), I’m a Q Games convert. When I next have an afternoon or evening to kill, instead of plunking out cash for a movie, I’ll be checking out a different entry into the PixelJunk series.

No comments · Written by Nathan at 5:11 pm · Tags , , ,

Jan062010

Nonogram Madness is effectively done

Seems like the last two projects I’ve done have had kind of lackluster ends. I’ve been sitting on this “mostly complete” project for a while, and while I’m still unsatisfied about certain areas (i.e. there’s no music), if I don’t push it out the door pretty soon it’ll just sit and stagnate. So, here we go: Nonogram Madness.

(If anyone cares, let me know what you think in the comments. The puzzles kinda progress in difficulty, but they haven’t been balanced at all, and some of them are pretty bad. There, you’ve been warned.)

3 comments · Written by Nathan at 8:13 pm · Tags , ,

Nov112009

In my very slim
amount of free time…

Mother 3 Fan Translation Patcher

I own the GBA cartridge, you cretins, so I hold the moral high ground here. =] It was just getting too frustrating having to constantly refer to a translated script… you really miss a lot of the game, which is a shame when the most interesting thing about the Earthbound/Mother series is the writing.

No comments · Written by Nathan at 8:08 pm · Tags , ,

Oct292009

Nonogram Madness title screen

Nonogram Madness

The “in progress” title screen of Nonogram Madness. Yeah, I decided on a name.

1 comment · Written by Nathan at 2:04 pm · Tags ,

Oct222009

Review: Halo 3 ODST

A few months ago, my office got a large flatscreen TV (ostensibly for client presentations), as well as an Xbox 360 (for after hours). Well, the “after hours” thing hasn’t really held up, and my office-mates and myself usually go for a bit of gaming action during the lunch hour. Street Fighter 4 was our game du jour for a while, but Halo 3 has definitely held the top spot overall. There’s just nothing like a good ol’ first-person shooter deathmatch. A few weeks ago, the newest version of Halo was obtained for us as well: Halo 3 ODST. Originally supposed to be merely an expansion, ODST (stands for “Orbital Drop Shock Trooper”) evolved into its own standalone game. After getting the game, we first loaded up the multiplayer disc, which is required to play the traditional “shoot your friends-” style game. Unfortunately, everyone was pretty disappointed to find that ODST has no new multiplayer content; only three new maps differentiate it from its predecessor.

I knew that the bulk of new content in ODST was in the form of the campaign, and was able to get my friends to agree to play through in co-op mode. The campaign’s story centers around a group of ODSTs, who have been dropped into a war-torn South African city. After losing control of the drop pod, your character wakes up separated from his squad mates, in a city that is swarming with alien baddies. Your task is to try to find out what happened to your friends, and make it out of the city alive.

As your character explores the city, he comes across certain objects which trigger flashbacks that tell the story of his squad. For example, one of the first objects you come across is the helmet of an intelligence officer that dropped with you. The ensuing flashback, played from the point of view of another member of your team, ends with a cutscene showing how the helmet got there. You get closer and closer to your missing friends, and eventually reunite and complete your mission.

ODST doesn’t add a whole lot in terms of game mechanics or weapons. Your character can throw grenades farther, and his default machine gun and sidearm are silenced now, but all the stuff you’ve grown to love about Halo 3 is mostly intact. In fact, that statement right there is a pretty good indicator regarding whether or not you’ll like this sequel. If you want to fight Covenant aliens in a new, more urban environment, and learn a bit more about the Halo universe, then you’ll like ODST. If you’re looking for new weapons or a different multiplayer experience, your money would probably be better spent elsewhere.

I personally enjoyed playing through the game, even though I skipped a lot of the extra story content. While the plot doesn’t expound a whole lot into the over Halo story arc, I was definitely wanted to keep playing in order to find out what happened to your character’s friends. The levels are all very detailed and well-crafted; you really feel like you’re totally alone, exploring an abandoned city. The ending was a bit lackluster, but I can forgive that due to the fact that the overall play experience was so good. My next step: play through Halo 3 proper.

No comments · Written by Nathan at 10:45 am · Tags , ,

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